


A Lie

by Heather C (riteinthefeels)



Series: Take Me Out [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Spoiler Alert - Freeform, reimagining of movie scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riteinthefeels/pseuds/Heather%20C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I tried to make it fluffy at the end. I think I just made it more painful. Part 3 and last of Take Me Out, continuation of "Broken" and "Shattered."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lie

Thor would not kill him on sight, though Loki felt the fury radiating from blue eyes at their last meeting. Yet, despite the love he still claimed to hold for the runty bastard raised in the house of Odin, Thor had not so much as sent word since their return to Asgard.

The dreams persisted, but a strange shift had taken place within them. Dream-Thor’s actions grew more sluggish, as if he agonized over what he thought was right. Loki’s own dream self always bore the ruby eyes and ridged cerulean skin of his heritage. Perhaps this change in appearance gave his dream-brother pause.

Of the glimpses he got of his brother, when Thor and the warriors brought enemies of the state to accompany Loki in the dungeons, none were ever returned. Thor’s back turned always away from him, and never so much as a glance over the shoulder came his way, as if by refusing to see Loki, he could be so easily erased from the thunderer’s life.

The first few times he had cried out in his sleep, einherjar had come running, expecting their vigil to be over, no doubt. Odin certainly would have no remorse if some filthy Vanir assassin murdered the cast-out prince in his cell. He doubted if Thor would even do more than grant him a passing thought, gracious that the burden of being his brother’s keeper had lifted.

Now, when the mumbled pleas and strangled screams woke him, only new intakes watched openly from their cells and turned quickly away when the prince cast glares upon them, as if his magic could strike through the Allfather’s barriers. For all the reputation his deeds gave him throughout the realms, Loki knew the other prisoners placed no trust in him, seeing him as unstable and ergi.

~*~

Dead? Was this a ploy of the Allfather’s? Loki conceded that even Odin was not so cruel as to lie about the death of the one person who still kept the trickster company.

His cell a shambles, Loki had sliced open his foot in his rage. He could not remember if it was intentional or had happened in some careless accident, only that the pain in his foot swept away, however briefly, the agony of losing Frigga.

Recurrent nightmares changed again, Thor’s bloodthirsty form replaced by an ethereal visage of the one they both called Mother.

Her last visit repeated, waking or sleeping, in a maddening loop of, “Am I not your mother?”

Always, that gaze of contempt, but as it replayed in his dreams, Loki picked other subtleties from her manner. What he mistook for disdain now showed itself the deep, aching sorrow only felt by ones who give freely of love treated carelessly and tossed by the wayside.

He remembered the first time he ventured off on his own, running through the forest outside of the palace for the sheer thrill of it. Clods of dirt and debris flying from under his boots, wind carrying the scent of trees through short, black hair and billowing his cape behind like a sail, he plunged deeper into the wooded shadows. Only when he stopped to breathe did he realize no familiar curve offered guidance from the trunks of ancient elms surrounding him.

He never learned of what happened that day, only that he woke some time later in Asgard, Frigga hovering over him with eyes rimmed red from unshed tears. Her eyes looked the same then as in his recent dreams. He supposed that was the first time he died, but even before Hela’s banishment centuries later, something conspired to keep him alive.

When Thor arrived, claiming he came not to mourn alongside sympathetic kin, Loki’s dreams had pervaded his waking world until delirium overtook him. The apparition threatened to kill him if betrayed, and he brushed it away, having learned to ignore the unfavorable in these hallucinations. Not until Thor’s hands wrapped around his arms, helping the beaten cur to stand, did he realize he had woken.

~*~

He laid waste to the diversion of the svartalfar in time to see Malekith safely aboard the retreating ship and Kurse, the behemoth dark elf abomination, approaching a badly injured and unarmed Thor. Loki grabbed the closest weapon he could find, a fierce-looking elven bayonet, and padded silently to the monstrosity, plunging the blade through the elf’s chest as he swung back to pummel Thor.

Kurse lurched backward as Loki sidestepped from behind him, eyes flicking down to Thor’s battered form. The gnarled hand should have been clutching at a blood-slicked protrusion from the svartalf’s torso, but instead it wrapped around Loki’s upper arm, swinging him hard against Kurse’s body and impaling him in kind, before forcefully casting him off.

The force of impact tore the breath from Loki’s lungs and he slumped to the ground, fumbling with the bomb he had torn from the elf’s hip. He tossed it behind the still-standing horror where it ignited, imploding in upon itself and dragging Kurse, clawing and bellowing, into nothingness.

Loki curled in on himself, as if he could smother the pain searing through his ribcage. The ashy Svartalfheim horizon began to turn as Thor fell to his knees beside him, cradling the fading trickster against his chest.

“You fool!” he whined. “That was not the plan!”

Loki turned away as his stomach lurched. “Now, may I at last have peace?”

“How can you speak of peace, Loki? You cannot leave me, you hear?”

“No… no, I will not leave. But finally I can stop running,” he whispered, eyes screwed shut. “Thor! Do you remember when we went to Jotunheim?”

Thor nodded, tears brimming over blue irises.

“One of the frost giants touched me…” Loki coughed, blood coating his lip, “but I was not injured.”

“Loki, I know. I know where you come from. It matters not. Frigga loved us equally, and Odin too, in his way.”

Grabbing at the front of Thor’s armor, Loki whispered, “You knew? All this time?”

Thor leaned down, nodding. “I knew since we were boys, but it never mattered to me. You are my brother.”

“You never told me…”

“Mother asked me not to. She said she would tell you, when the time was right.”

Loki coughed again, spitting blood onto the dusky ground. “Thor, I’ve had these dreams. For years, they’ve kept me up at night, and haunted me during the day. These nightmares… Thor, you’ve killed me hundreds of times in my sleep, because I am the monster we swore to fight when we were young.”

“Oh, Loki! How could you ever think that? Loki, I love you. You are my brother, and I love you. Loki, you fool…”

Thor pulled his brother close, hugging him gently as blood trickled from the gaping wound on either side, leeching Loki’s life into the ground.

“I’m a fool,” the trickster rasped. “I’m a fool.”

“How much could have been prevented, if you had but known how loved you are?” Thor murmured to himself.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Loki, just hold on. We’ll go back and I’ll make everything right with Father. You can live free in the palace again. It will be just like before.”

Loki’s eyes fluttered closed as he slowly shook his head. “I don’t have it, Thor. I don’t think I ever did.”

Thor choked around the lump in his throat, “Then I will tell Father what you did here today.”

Glamour faded, and blood drained from already pale skin, Loki turned a faint shade of blue. He fell limp, strength gone with the last of his vitality.

“I didn’t do it for him.”


End file.
